


A Toast

by lordcornwalis



Category: Star vs. The Forces Of Evil
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24585685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordcornwalis/pseuds/lordcornwalis
Summary: Raise a glass at the Tavern at the End of the Multiverse! Originally published for the Reddit June short story competition.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	A Toast

Sipping her flaming drink, Hekapoo smacked her lips in appreciation of the strange mixture of spice and hard alcohol. "Gotta hand it to you Bill, you may not be much of a conversationalist. But you make a hell of a cocktail," she chuckled, eyeing the anthropomorphic eyeball. Living up to his reputation, Bill merely blinked two times in acknowledgment before turning to serve another patron. "Good talking to you too…" she mumbled, before draining the rest of her drink. _"Right about now, Fleshwad and the Butterfly Trio are probably knee-deep in destroying the magic. Better get the last drink in while I can,"_ she thought with a smirk before leaning forward to try and get Bill's attention.

"Drinking alone before non-existence claims you? Man that's sad even for a loner like you," said a deep voice just as another flaming coconut mug was placed in front of her.

"Well it was better than sitting with my moronic coworkers as they root for a genocide…" she muttered. "Thanks for the drink though, Sam. I definitely don't want to face this sober."

"Well cheers then," said Sam the bat-faced bartender, toasting her with his own flaming concoction. After they'd clinked their drinks together and taken long sips, he placed his drink down on the counter and leaned in on his elbows, his face only inches away from a surly-looking Hekapoo. "Any regrets?" he asked, once her slightly unfocused, orange eye had met his own.

"Ha, less than you'd think for an immortal being," she laughed before her face fell back into a determined scowl.

"By the look on your face, I can tell that what you do have rattling around up there," he pointed to the flame burning between her horns, "has got you pretty tied in knots. Why don't you tell me about it? Might make you feel better, and I can assure you of 100% patron-bartender confidentiality."

"That and the fact that I will cease to exist in about ten minutes…" she added, her familiar smirk returning.

"Hey, you brought it up…"

"Kinda hard not to… ya know?" Hekapoo gave Bill a playful wink and lifted the flaming drink to her lips. Holding up a finger for silence as she drained the coconut of its stiff contents, she let out a loud belch and wiped her mouth with the back of her spiked arm.

"Charming as always, Hekapoo," said Sam, swapping her drink out for a fresh one in the blink of an eye.

"It's my defining characteristic," she fired back, laughing again.

"So about those regrets…" pressed Sam, looking a bit more serious as the Master of the Forge peered out at him over her new drink. "I always did wonder what an immortal being might regret," he continued, watching both the flames of her drink and those above her head seeming to dance in perfect synchronicity together.

"When you live to be a few thousand years old, you tend not to care about a whole lot anymore," she started, her smile fading to a fleeting memory as she fixed a baleful eye on a suddenly not so suave looking Sam. "I've done almost everything that can be done in this multiverse. I've witnessed civilizations rise and fall, glimpsed countless parallel existences, and saved the Multiverse more times than I can count from some truly heinous assholes. I've been an advisor to every single Queen since the Butterfly Kingdom was founded."

"Impressive resume…" quipped Sam, taking a sip from his own drink.

"Quiet, Drink Monkey! I'm on a roll," she warned before pressing on. "I've done stuff you wouldn't even believe. One time, Omnitraxus and I teamed up to close a dimensional rift that threatened to tear the multiverse apart. Closest I think I've ever come to actually dying, ya know…if you don't count right now."

"How is that a regret? Sounds to me like you just crushed it for the last couple thousand years."

"Do you always interrupt nearly all-powerful beings when they're telling a story? Or am I just special?" she asked, glaring at Sam as he shrank back slightly, holding up his hands in surrender. "LikeI was _saying_ … I kicked ass for a few thousand years, myself, and the entire Magic High Commission. Do you know where that got us?"

"The love and adoration of the entire multiverse?"

"Still a comedian even after I use my 'Scary Face…' Knew I liked you for some reason, Sam," smiled Hekapoo as she brushed her crimson hair out of her other eye to gaze at him warmly. "But to answer simply…no. Most of you silly flesh bags barely knew how many times we saved your butts, so we weren't exactly bathing in praise. No, what we got was a whole lot more dangerous…" She paused expectantly, waiting for Sam to speak. When he remained silent, apparently not wanting to interrupt her again, she rolled her eyes. "That was your cue to actually speak this time, _genius_ ," she growled at the now grinning bartender.

"Sorry sorry. Couldn't help it…" he laughed, simply shrugging when she narrowed her eyes at him.

"God I'm so glad I'll be dead in five minutes…" Hekapoo grumbled before polishing off the last of her drink. Holding up a hand when Sam turned to get her a refill, she pressed on. "Like I was saying… Thousands of years of kicking ass with the other M.H.C. members gave us all possibly the most dangerous gift of all time: arrogance. We thought we knew better than anyone what was best for the multiverse…"

"You're talking about that mess on Mewni?" he asked, eyeing her closely as a look of pained regret creased her face.

"How'd you hear about that?" she asked, her frown deepening.

"That grumpy blonde teen was raving about it fifteen minutes ago. I think the whole bar knows about it by now," explained Sam, with a nod over his shoulder at the rest of the tavern patrons. All of them seemed to be watching the two of them closely as they whispered to one another.

"Well anyways… Yeah, we caused that. Don't ask me to explain it all, I don't have that kind of time," she added quickly when Sam opened his mouth to ask for details. "But since my time is up any minute now, I'll give you the short version. In our infinite wisdom, the M.H.C., including me, decided that we couldn't allow monsters to have equal standing on Mewni. So long story short, we spent the last five hundred years or so systematically oppressing and subduing the monsters on Mewni. Decision after decision that I willingly agreed with led us to today's crisis where we gave command of an unstoppable magic army to a psycho."

"Oh is that all? Just the potential deaths of thousands of monsters on your conscious? And here I was thinking it was something serio-"

"It isn't that, fleshwad…" interrupted Hekapoo. "Weren't you paying attention? That blonde teen and her family are destroying the magic. So that magical army is just going to be a pack of scared villagers and scrap metal once it's gone."

"Waittt…" said Sam, drawing out the word as he thought hard. "So if everybody survives, then no harm no foul right? I mean that's why you brought all those people here right? To come up with a plan to save Mewni?" He watched as Hekapoo's determined frown wavered before slowly twisting into a strained smile. Without any warning, she tipped her head back and laughed uproariously, slapping the bar as her entire body shook with mirth.

"That's a good one," she finally managed to breathe out between fits of suppressed laughter. "Naw, I was pretty sure Mewni was fucked until Star pulled that half-baked plan of hers out of her butt."

"Soooo, your regret is that you were a part of a racist organization that helped the mewmans oppress monsters for centuries?"

"DING DING DING! Knew we'd get there someday! Put a drink for yourself on my tab, Sam!" she shouted, rolling her eyes and glaring at a pair of furry patrons nearest to her that had been staring. "Mind your own business if you want to be alive in the next five minutes," she spat at them, causing them both to look determinedly at their drinks. "Sam, for centuries I let my arrogance and self-assured knowledge that Mewmans were the superior race on Mewni guide my actions. I, directly or indirectly through my actions, hurt a lot of people over the years…including the people I brought here today. Sure I helped save Mewni today, but it doesn't make up for a lifetime of bad decisions."

Sam didn't answer for a long time. He simply stood there, gazing into both of the orange eys of the supremely powerful being in front of him and contemplated as she stared at him expectantly. "Look, I'm just bartender…I can't give you absolution," he finally said, holding up a finger for her to remain quiet when she made to open her mouth. The gesture earned him a scorching glare for his trouble, but she remained silent as he pressed on. "But what I was going to say is this. You may have been arrogant, and you certainly let that arrogance hurt people. But in the end, you chose to do the right thing even though it will result in you ceasing to exist. That's gotta count for something, right?"

Instead of answering him, Hekapoo merely reached over and seized the still smoking remnants of his drink. Downing it in one, she gave him a sly smile and nodded. "You're pretty smart for a bartender and noble self-sacrifice has got to count for something on the cosmic scales, right?" she mused.

"I wouldn't want to live in a multiverse where it doesn't," Sam laughed, placing two more flaming cocktails in front of them. Once again, they clinked the coconuts together in a toast and took long, deep draws from the mug. "You scared of the end?" he asked, once they'd both put their drinks back on the polished bar top.

"Nah," she shrugged, sounding completely unfazed at the prospect of her own death. "When you've been alive for thousands of years, things like death don't seem as scary. My bucket list is pretty short, to be honest." Suddenly, she turned and stared off to the left. Sam watched quietly, almost reverently as she seemed to focus on something in the far distance, through the wall of the tavern. After a moment she nodded, smiling to herself as she turned back to face a solemn-faced Sam. "Speaking of… It looks like Star did it. The end of the age of magic is over."

Fighting down the rising tightness in this throat, Sam watched as Hekapoo's form began to simply dissolve like fine dust blowing away in a stiff breeze. "I'm gonna miss you, H-Poo," he whispered under his breath as he watched her final moments.

Hekapoo however, didn't respond. Instead, she simply smiled and thought about the one person in the entire multiverse she would miss: a boy in a red hoodie. She had watched him grow up before her very eyes as she tested him mercilessly. Impressed, despite herself at his overcoming the impossible odds set against him again and again in his quest to prove himself. In the end, their shared strife and mutual enmity had resulted in a close bond she didn't think even Omnitraxus would have been able to predict. The Master of the Forge and a fleshwad from a stinky dirt rock named Earth. _"See you on the flipside, Muscles,"_ she thought, holding the picture of her one true friend in her mind as oblivion claimed her.


End file.
